The veteran TV reporter gets backing from professionals in the media, communications, and humanitarian organizations as well as the lawyer for a Plunder Dome defendant.

10:09 AM EST on Wednesday, December 1, 2004

BY TRACY BRETON
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- Nine Rhode Islanders, including a lawyer for one of the defendants convicted in the Operation Plunder Dome corruption case, have written letters to the chief judge of the U.S. District Court here on behalf of Channel 10 investigative reporter Jim Taricani, who is facing up to six months in prison for defying a court order to reveal a confidential source.

On Nov. 18, Taricani, 55, was convicted of criminal contempt by Chief U.S. District Judge Ernest C. Torres for refusing to disclose who gave him an undercover videotape that showed a City Hall official accepting a cash bribe. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 9.

Among those who wrote to Torres on behalf of the veteran reporter was Kevin J. Bristow, lawyer for former City Hall tax official Rosemary H. Glancy, who was convicted by a jury of job-related corruption charges arising from the FBI's investigation of city government. Glancy was sentenced to serve two years and nine months -- but after a brief stint in prison, was released after being diagnosed with a terminal illness. She later died from liver failure.

In his letter, Bristow calls Taricani "a person of extraordinary personal integrity" who has built his career "based upon a reputation for honesty and reliability." Bristow says he's sure that Taricani's refusal to comply with Torres' order to reveal his source "is not based in any way upon a lack of respect for the court's authority or the judicial process" but rather upon a promise to the source to never disclose his identity.

Taricani's lawyers are asking the court to impose a sentence of home confinement -- not to exceed 30 days -- based on his medical condition. Taricani had a heart transplant in 1996 and a pacemaker installed three years ago and has to take medication every 12 hours.

Bristow says in his letter that Taricani's "fear of death is more real than most of us have had reason to contemplate."

Others who have written on Taricani's behalf include Channel 12 investigative reporter Jack White; Dyana Koelsch, Taricani's former newsroom colleague at Channel 10 who is now spokeswoman for the Rhode Island court system; Barbara S. Cottam, senior vice president and director of corporate communicatons for Citizens Financial Group; David A. Duffy, a retired advertising executive who is chairman of the Convention Center Authority; Eileen Hayes, executive director of Amos House; and James C. Miller, minister at the First Baptist Church in America.

Letters were also sent by Nancy Thomas, former director of media relations for the American Heart Association's Rhode Island Division, and Bernard J. Beaudreau, head of the Rhode Island Community Food Bank.

Cottam says that while she and Taricani have sometimes battled professionally, he always tries to be fair and works "with a dogged determination to uncover what would otherwise be unexposed . . . As a man of integrity, he cannot run away from a principle in which he believes -- giving his word -- or from someone who believed in his word, no matter whether that person is deserving or not."

Cottam and Duffy ask Torres to show leniency based on Taricani's career accomplishments and because of his fragile health and charitable endeavors.

Hayes, of Amos House, talks about how Taricani, who serves on her board, has volunteered his time on Saturdays preparing and serving food in the soup kitchen. Beaudreau lauds Taricani for his volunteer work for the Food Bank and a half-hour documentary he did on hunger in Rhode Island -- which was aired in 2002, the same year former Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr. and his top aide, Frank E. Corrente -- who was shown on the tape Taricani aired accepting a $1,000 cash bribe -- were convicted of corruption charges.

In separate letters, Thomas and Lawrence B. Sadwin, the former chairman of the National Board of the American Heart Association, talk of Taricani's work for the organization and how reporting on his own story helped garner support for research and programs to fight heart disease.

Miller urges Torres to throw out Taricani's conviction and says that imprisoning the reporter "would eclipse a great body of good that he does for the community."

Koelsch calls Taricani a meticulous reporter committed to telling stories without bias, someone who "has used his considerable reporting skills and the power of the media to help make this state more livable." Koelsch also calls Taricani "a selfless and loyal friend" who was a source of strength to her and her husband when they almost lost an infant son 15 years ago.

White tells Torres he fears the Taricani case will have a chilling effect on reporting of information "that the entrenched and the powerful try to hide, often by unscrupulous means." Reporters, he says, try to avoid using unnamed sources but sometimes they must do so, he tells the judge. "My concern is that the impact of the Taricani case may be that people who are in a position to provide information that the public should have will not come forward."

Taricani has also received support from journalists outside Rhode Island. Christiane Amanpour, chief international correspondent for CNN who interned for Taricani in the early 1980s when she was a student at URI, tells Torres in a letter that Taricani taught her "that journalism when done right is a noble profession, that America's unique commitment to freedom of the press is vital to a functioning democracy, [and] that holding public officials to account is the imperative of a corruption-free society."

Yesterday, the National Society of Newspaper Columnists issued a news release praising Taricani's integrity for refusing to disclose his source and decrying his prosecution.